Are you a fan of pizza? I sure am! I think my love of pizza probably began in my childhood where we enjoyed regular pizza nights where the pizza was made by my dad. I also remember visiting The Pizza Pie Man, a restaurant where you could sit and watch your pizza getting made. As a child, that was very fun! Being off gluten means I cannot simply order a pizza or walk into a restaurant, so making my own has been something I have been working on. Fortunately I do have several successful recipes and this is the latest one I have come across.
Have you heard of the book, Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day? I read it and loved the concept and now the same authors have come out with a gluten-free version. Put simply, you mix up a dough (with no kneading), allow to rise, pop it into your fridge, and use it as you need it, making fresh bread whenever you need it (did I say need? Perhaps it would be more accurate to say want, but some of us do seem to have needs when it comes to bread).
The first thing I did was to make up a mixture of Gluten-Free All-Purpose Flour, using the recipe from the book. This included: 6 cups white rice flour, 3 1/4 cups sorghum flour, 1 3/4 cups tapioca flour or starch, 1 1/4 cups potato starch, and 1/4 cup xanthan gum or ground psyllium husk. As always, I like to whisk the mixture together to ensure that everything is mixed well.
For the Pizza and Flatbread Dough, I combined 5 cups of the Gluten-Free All-Purpose Flour
1 1/2 cups cornmeal
1 cup potato starch
2 teaspoons xanthan gum or 4 tsp. ground psyllium husk
1 Tablespoon granulated yeast
1 to 1 1/2 tablespoons Kosher salt
and 1/4 sugar
Mix well
In a separate bowl, I combined 4 egg whites
1/2 cup olive oil
and 3 3/4 cups lukewarm water (100 degrees F or below)
I whisked this together
I simply poured the wet ingredients into the dry and mixed until all of the dry ingredients were well incorporated
At this point, the dough is ready to rest
I covered the bowl with plastic wrap (though made sure it was not airtight) and let it rest at room temperature until the dough rose, approximately 2 hours
It may be hard to tell from the photos, but the dough rose very well
I left the dough for the full 2 hours. From there you have the option of refrigerating the dough in a lidded (not airtight) container and using over the next 5 days, storing it in the freezer for up to 2 weeks, or using it immediately. As this recipe makes multiple pizzas (I got six), you can do a combination of all three.
It is probably hard to tell, but I divided the dough into 6 portions as I wanted to make 6 pizzas. The actual recipe says you can make 10 6 -ounce pizzas.
I put one portion of the dough onto parchment paper, which had been sprinkled with cornmeal.
I put another piece of parchment paper on top, one that had been sprayed with non-stick spray. The dough was really easy to roll out, in fact I simply pushed it down with my fingers.
The top piece of parchment paper came off quite nicely.
But then I had to figure out how to get it from the parchment paper to the baking stone, which was supposed to be heating up in the oven. Let's just say that the pizza was very happy staying on the parchment paper and I realized I needed another technique.
At this point, I moved into putting the pizza dough directly onto the pizza stone, after I had sprinkled it with cornmeal. According to the recipe, a pizza peel will work too, but I did not have one.
From there I added my toppings
The pizza was baked one one of the racks near the bottom of the oven in a temperature of 550 degrees F for approximately 15 minutes (after 8-10 minutes, I checked it and turned the stone so one side was not getting more brown than another). You will want to put on your exhaust fan as there may be smoke. You can also reduce the oven temperature to 475 degrees f and bake it longer.
It came out beautifully!
I continued with this, making 6 pizzas. Two of the pizzas were made right away, while four of them were frozen for later.
As you can see, I put all of the toppings on. The pizzas were covered in saran wrap and frozen individually in the freezer on pieces of cardboard. Once solid, I wrapped them well and stacked them in an extra large Ziploc freezer bag.
Last weekend, I pulled one of the pizzas out, put it on the baking stone and baked it, adding a bit more baking time. It worked perfectly!
You can see that the pizza is still frozen as the edges of the pizza are curled up
In a short period of time, I had homemade gluten-free pizza!
I still had one remaining portion of dough, so that was put in the fridge for later use. On day five, I realized I needed to use the dough and decided to make garlic-slathered cheese bread. The recipe for this comes from the book, A Passion for Baking, written by Marcy Goldman.
I halved her recipe as I was using less dough. I combined 3 garlic cloves, minced; 1/4 tsp. salt, 1/3 cup mayonnaise, 1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese, 1/4 tsp. dried Italian seasoning; and 2 Tb. olive oil.
I used the same process of putting the dough on the stone, covering the dough with parchment and pressing it out.
The garlic mixture was slathered on the dough
followed by the cheese (1 cup shredded mozzarella). This was baked in an 400 degree oven until nicely golden and the topping was sizzling, about 20-25 minutes.
Delish!
And yes, these taste as good as they look
Complete Recipes
Gluten-Free All-Purpose Flour
6 cups White rice flour
6 cups White rice flour
3 1/4 cups Sorghum flour
1 3/4 cups Tapioca flour or starch
1 1/4 cups Potato starch
1/4 cup Xanthan gum or ground psyllium husk
Method
Whisk and mix the ingredients in a 5- to 6-quart lidded container. Finish by picking up the container and vigorously shaking until the flours are completely blended.
Pizza and Flatbread Dough
5 cups gluten-free all purpose flour
1 1/2 cups cornmeal
1 cup potato starch
2 tsp. xanthan gum or 4 tsp. ground psyllium
1 to 1 1/2 Tb. Kosher salt
1/4 cup sugar
3 3/4 cups Lukewarm water (100 degrees f or below)
1/2 cup olive oil
4 egg whites
cornmeal
Method
- Whisk together the flour, cornmeal, xanthan gum, yeast, salt, and sugar in a 5-quart bowl, or a lidded (not airtight) food container.
- Combine the liquid ingredients and add the mixture to the dry ingredients, using a spoon or a heavy-duty stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, until all the dry ingredients are well incorporated.
- Cover (not airtight), and allow to rest at room temperature until dough rises, approximately 2 hours.
- Dough can be used immediately after initial rise, though it is easier to handle when cold. Refrigerate in a lidded (not airtight) container and use over the next five days. Or store the dough for up to 2 weeks in the freezer in 1/2 pound portions. When using frozen dough, thaw it in the refrigerator overnight before use.
Baking the Pizza
- Preheat a baking stone to your oven's highest temperature (550 degrees F or 500 degrees F), placing the stone near the bottom of the oven to help crisp the bottom crust without burning the cheese. Most stones will be hot enough in 20-30 minutes. (I used a different technique)
- Prepare and measure all the toppings in advance. The key to a pizza that slides off the peel is to work quickly - don't let the dough sit on the peel any longer than necessary. (Remember that I put the dough directly on the pizza stone).
- Dust the surface of the dough and pull off a 6-ounce piece. Quickly pat it into a ball on pizza peel prepared with rice flour or cornmeal. Flatten it into a disk by gently pressing with flour-dusted fingers until you reach a thickness of 1/8 inch. Check to be sure that the dough isn't sticking and, if it is, lift with a dough scraper and dust with more flour. As you work, pat the sides to round them off.
- Add toppings. No resting is needed. This can go directly into the oven.
- Check for doneness in 8-10 minutes; at this time, turn the pizza around in the oven if one side is browning faster than the other. It may need 5 minutes or more in the oven, depending on your pizza's thickness and your oven temperature.
- Let cool slightly on a rack to allow the cheese to set before serving.
No comments:
Post a Comment